Abstract
The book edited by Derya Özkan, Cool Istanbul: Urban Enclosures and Resistances, is about the city of Istanbul, a target destination for tourists from all over the world. It is one of the most populous and densest cities in the world and can be regarded as a ‘global city’ between the Balkans and the Middle East. Istanbul is a historic city, which at the same time changes so fast that someone can be lost in a street visited only a couple of months ago. This change is due to the construction of various projects all over the city such as numerous large-scale infrastructural investments and various residential, business and retail complexes. Istanbul – much like any other city – is never fully completed; rather, it is always ‘under construction’: the resultant change is often considered as a positive aspect for cities, but demolition, eviction and despair are also brought about by change. This book looks at one particular feature of this famous city’s attributes since the 2000s: ‘coolness’. The collection is based on a workshop held in Istanbul in November 2013 which brought together academics and activists who discussed various aspects of ‘cool Istanbul’ and the role of various economic sectors as diverse as textile, arts and culture and food in making of ‘cool Istanbul’. They analysed representations of ‘cool Istanbul’ through photographs, movies and TV series. The Gezi Protests were also an important topic of the workshop, a turning point for Turkish society regarded as a cool protest and ‘performance’ that brought together diverse groups against the government and the state.
Based on the debates of the workshop, the book is divided into two parts: The first part focusses on various meanings of ‘cool’, its relation to value and labour and its reflections in different economic sectors. In the first chapter, Derya Özkan opens the debate by asking what the meanings of cool and coolness are. She argues that ‘coolness’ was a silent attitude first adopted by Africans to resist the physical and symbolic violence they experienced (pp. 24–26). Gradually, these terms have been transferred from the realm of resistance into that of consumption. Özkan also analyses ‘coolness’ in the context of Istanbul and argues that coolness has a positive meaning when compared with other descriptions of Istanbul based on western values, such as ‘oriental city’ and ‘third world city’ (p. 14). ‘Cool Istanbul’ is associated with Istanbul’s identity per se, without it necessarily being reflected through western standards. The city is a mix of West and East, old and new and its coolness lies in its ability to integrate these diverse realms into itself. However, Özkan urges that this coolness also refers to Istanbul’s success in promoting its richness to the rest of the world, reflecting the drive to consume (pp. 15–18). In the next chapter, Aras Ozgun looks at cultural industries, which became important in the production and promotion of the ‘cool Istanbul’ such as the increasing number and scale of biennales, annual art fairs and music festivals addressing both national and international audiences (pp. 54–55). In the current socio-cultural context, being ‘cool’ is necessary for anyone or anything to be considered valuable but this value is economic, even for cultural industries which, ironically, are regarded as more autonomous from market relations (pp. 56–58). Asli Odman’s chapter is about the working classes in Istanbul who produce different actual and symbolic commodities but live under precarious work conditions (pp. 73, 75). This article was based on a workshop session which brought together workers from different economic sectors to discuss their problems, outside the usual academic event. Both the workshop and Odman’s chapter revealed the problems of the working classes in Istanbul and how their work is related to the production of a ‘cool Istanbul’ although their labour is concealed under the brand names and symbols that they produce.
The second part of the book centres on the visual imaginations of ‘cool Istanbul’, from movies to old black-and-white photographs and TV series, which represent ‘cool people’ and ‘cool Istanbul’, resisting various forms of injustice. As example, Ozlem Koksal argues that in the movie ‘Crossing the Bridge’, director Fatih Akin represents Istanbul as a moving and lively city and a mixture of different cultures, temporalities and realities which make it ‘cool’ (pp. 82, 99). In another chapter, Ipek Tureli argues that black-and-white photographs of Istanbul taken by the famous photographer Ara Guler became timeless representatives of Istanbul (p. 104). As Tureli argues, these photographs were about cool subjects, i.e. people coming from diverse social backgrounds, such as boatmen, Romani people and tram drivers. Their coolness lies in their representations as active subjects taking pleasure in their lives and works, instead of being represented as exploited ‘objects’ as shown by other photographers (pp. 121–122). In the last chapter, Berrin Yanikkaya turns to the TV screen and analyses the female protagonist of a TV series, a young prostitute in Istanbul. Yanıkkaya explains that female protagonists stereotypically have been regarded as either free and available or good women (wife and mother) (p. 156). This particular protagonist, in contract, is an ambivalent subject: despite being a prostitute, she maintains moral integrity and is an honest person who also helps the people around her (pp. 156–157). Despite her background, which can easily be regarded as vulnerable and stigmatised, she is a cool subject since she can resist the dark side of the city. Yanıkkaya argues that she is the embodiment of Istanbul (pp. 153–155), a palimpsest and fragmented city consisting of different layers and people regarded as the ‘others’ of the Turkish society (pp. 155, 161).
In the book, Derya Özkan and her colleagues successfully bring together different faces of ‘cool Istanbul’. The book reveals hidden problems faced by the white-collar workers, particularly in cultural industries and academia, who are usually regarded as more independent than the rest of the labour force. However, the book demonstrates that they also experience various problems, such as precarious working conditions, segregation in the work place and declining social status. Another strength of the book is its approach to the concept of ‘cool’, taking it as a feature of subcultures resisting the mainstream ‘cool’. However, as a person who attended the workshop, I think the book could have also covered the music and food sectors which were the subjects of two sessions, as well as the ‘mainstream cool’ i.e. those people who are regarded as cool because they consume the richness and diversity of Istanbul. They have identical dress, speech and attitude codes and usually prefer to live and work in old and gentrified neighbourhoods of cities like Istanbul. Various terms are used to define them, such as ‘hipsters’ or the ‘creative class’ or, as described in the workshop, ‘gentrifiers’. Although for the authors ‘cool’ means more than ‘gentrifiers’ and their drive for consumption of the urban space, it might have been better to have included how they contribute to the making of ‘cool Istanbul’ as it was done in the workshop. While the workshop had a session on Islamism and Islamic way of life, becoming more visible in the public sphere as the result of the Justice and Development’s one party rule in the last decade, the book did not cover such issues. Another shortcoming of the book is its lack of analysis of the Gezi protests, which was an important part of the workshop, despite slight touches on the subject in several articles. The protests were seen by many as a unique moment in Turkish history which brought together different ‘cool’ subjects in the Gezi Park against the government. In this regard, as Derya Ozkan argues in the first chapter of the book, the Gezi protests can be read as the ‘real cool’, reflecting the ability of the inhabitants of Istanbul to resist the consumer-driven paradigm even briefly, by coming together inside the Gezi Park without the ‘cool’ masks they wear during their ordinary lives.